


Nothing False and Possible is Love

by MagicaLauren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Confessing love, Drabble, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, HP Spring Fling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11305089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaLauren/pseuds/MagicaLauren
Summary: "And when she speaks, it’s hoarse, “Remus.”Tonks wonders if he can hear it, there are a thousand different emotions that have been falling from her heart into her stomach to twist and burn their way back up ever since he rejected her, and she tries to physically push them out. Almost, she leaves it at that because what else can she say? That is the only word left, Remus Remus Remus."OrRemus Lupin realizing Tonks really loves him for the first time





	Nothing False and Possible is Love

His hair shakes like sand falling down a dune. 

 

“Tonks I-” A grimace twists his lips and pulls at his scars before he looks down. 

 

And it hurts, that  _ now _ he chooses to use that name- so impersonally. That he can’t even look at her.

 

Tonks reaches out, just barely, letting her fingers hover in the air. He’s like a ghost standing here in Grimmauld, another cursed one left to haunt the halls. 

 

“You can’t keep doing this.” he finishes, the words a bare whisper in his mouth. She wants to scream, “ _ You’re doing this. You are!”  _ She wants to kick him and say, “ _ I will do this as long as I live, I will feel this as long as I live!”  _

 

She wants to whisper, tenderly, “ _ Look at you my love, you can’t keep doing this to yourself either.” _

 

It’s a paradox, but that’s what she is: a metamorphmagus that’s  never this nor that, a half pureblood-half muggleborn, a hufflepuff with a mean bite, a proud girl who can’t stand her first name.  And what is love but a paradox? 

 

So she lets her fingers drop.

 

And when she speaks, it’s hoarse,  _ “Remus.”  _

 

Tonks wonders if he can hear it, there are a thousand different emotions that have been falling from her heart into her stomach to twist and burn their way back up ever since he rejected her, and she tries to physically push them out. Almost, she leaves it at that because what else can she say? That is the only word left,  _ Remus Remus Remus.  _

 

“This isn’t my natural hair color,” is what comes out. His head whips up and Tonks knows she’s made a fool of herself in front of the love of her life and a hallway full of dead house elf heads that stare with glossy eyes right over her head. 

 

But-

 

But she’s going to die soon, Tonks knows, in this war. Staring down her wand at Thorfinn Rowle in the Hogwart’s hall had come with that realization. Maybe one day she’ll just let a hex hit her, leave this all behind, or jump in front of one for Remus, or it will be a fierce battle and her opponent will outwit in a series of elaborate spells. Or it will hit her in the back, quick and unexpected like Sirius. 

 

“It’s yours,” Tonks elaborates, “I’ve got black hair like my mother, I can’t change it back my hair just stays like this these days. And my patronus is a wolf ya’ know, I think- like yours I mean.” 

 

Remus shifts, uneasy in the narrow hall, but there’s something different in him now. 

 

Silence stretches long like the shadows around her ankles, Tonks never was good at staying still, but these days she’s hadn’t felt like moving around as much as she used to. Tittering voices drift up from the dining room where Tonks is sure the Order, or what’s left of it after Dumbledore are trying to regroup.

 

Her attention snaps back at a soft clearing of Remus’ throat. “I, ah-” he begins in that way of his like he’s about to explain something with his hands, “Lily,” he settles on.

 

“ _ Come on old man! Spit it out,”  _ Tonks wants to tease him, to nudge up real close and laugh, to be a spitfire next to the gentle man. She doesn’t. 

 

“She, well she had a doe for a patronus. Um, like James’ or maybe James’ was like Lily’s, hard to tell with those two. Used to be- you know.” The pieces fall with a little mental  _ click  _ in Tonk’s brain- James and Lily Potter. Tonks looks at the man in front of her, he looks frail in this light, and she wants to hold him, make sure he never loses anyone again. Wants to, wants to, wants to. 

 

Tonks wonders if these are the kind of empathetic feelings everyone else in Hufflepuff feels all the time, she’s not sure if she could handle all that.

 

Remus is moving more, she notices, small things like rubbing at his chin and resting on different feet. 

 

He sounds so incredibly sad, “You would have liked Lily is what I mean.” His head shakes again, his locks tossing. “No, that’s not what I mean,” he shakes his head again, like a twtich. 

 

_ He’s nervous,  _ Tonks realizes. 

 

And hope kindles, just a little in her chest right under her heart, burning the black tar in her. 

 

“I mean, that too,” Remus corrects himself again. And-

 

“Come on old man! Spit it out,” Tonks leans forward, a slight pressure on her toes. She feels like maybe if she goes forward a bit more she’ll fly, her head feels so light.

 

Remus isn’t looking at her but his eyes widen just so.

 

“What I mean to say is that I kind of get what those two were on about and that I love you and-” 

 

Tonks feels so  _ bright.  _

 

“Your hair is uhm pink. I mean-”

**Author's Note:**

> My first Harry Potter fic! And it's a gift so I hope they like it! Kind of short (like my shortest ever but I count it as a drabble) because uncharted territories but ya know... It's been so long since I've written fanfiction I'm so used to writing poetry (btw my poetry blog on tumblr is @small-epics and it would mean the world to me if you followed) and I feel like this came out more poem than scene ahh, oh well


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